Not less incompetent for the construction of railways, than are the directors for the management of the completed roads, are at least one half of the so-called engineers in America.  Obliged to complete no course of education, to pass no examination, they are at once let loose upon the country whenever they feel like it, to build what go by the names of railroads and bridges, but are in reality traps in which to lose both life and money.  Indeed, any man (in the United States) who has carried a rod or chain is called an engineer; while the correct definition is, a man who has, first, a thorough knowledge of mechanics, mathematics, and chemistry,—­second, the knowledge necessary for applying these sciences to the arts,—­and last, the knowledge requisite to the correct adaptation of such arts to the wants of man, but more than all, that experience which is got only from continual practice.  We have such a class of engineers, and to them we owe what of fame we have in the engineering world.  Second, comes another grade, men who, commencing as subordinates, without any preparatory knowledge, but with natural genius, and an intuitive knowledge of mechanics, need only to have their ideas generalized to see the bearing of their special knowledge upon the whole, in order to rank high in the profession.  Third, a class who lack both natural and acquired knowledge, and whose only recommendation is that they are always for sale to the highest bidder, whether he be president, director, or contractor; sometimes working nominally for the company, but really for the contractor,—­or in some cases, so debased is this class of persons, for both contractor and company openly.  Of late years this prostitution of mongrel engineers has had place to an alarming extent.  Let us hope that the old professional pride, and, better still, a love of truth and honesty for their own sake, may yet triumph, and place real engineers high above the dead level to which ignorance and pretence and venality have degraded the profession.

[Footnote 1:  Handbook of Railroad Construction, for the Use of American Engineers.  By GEORGE L. VOSE, Civil Engineer.  Boston and Cambridge:  James Munroe & Company. 1857.

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Reports, from 1830 to 1850.  BENJAMIN H. LATROBE, Chief Engineer.

Railways and their Management, being a Pamphlet written by JAMES M. WHITON, ESQ., late of the Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad. 1856.

Report of the President, Treasurer, and General Superintendent of the New York and Erie Railroad Company to the Stockholders.  March, 1856.

Final Report of JOHN A. ROEBLING, Civil Engineer on the Niagara Railway Suspension-Bridge, May, 1855.]